Mandala Chapel at Tholing monastery | Photos of Tibet

Photo of the ruins of the Yeshe-O mandala chapel at Tholing monastery, Guge, Tibet.

Tholing monastery was built by King Yeshe-O in 997 C.E. and became the centre of a renewal of Tibetan Buddhism under the teacher Atisha who came from India.

On contemporary maps, Guge is now known by the Chinese name Zanda.

The Yesho-O chapel is in the shape of a mandala. All the statues and almost all of the wall paintings were destroyed in the 1960's cultural revolution.
You can see outlines on the walls where statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas once stood. The central stupa has been demolished but there are intricate decorative carvings that still remain around the base.

In his book 'The Way of the White Clouds' Lama Govinda considered the Buddhist art of Tholing and nearby Tsaparang to be as fine as any he'd seen. His companion, Li Gotami's, photographs taken in 1949 and published in her book 'Tibet in Picture: A Journey into the Past' are the best record we have.

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Landscape format.

A guide to approx sizes
A3: paper size 42x29.7cm, image size 40x28cm
A2: paper size 59.4x42cm, image size 57x40cm
70x50cm paper size, image size 68x48cm